Since Lorrie Moore is one of our favorite contemporary authors and Friday Night Lights is one of our all-time favorite TV series, you can only imagine how tickled we were to come across the former waxing philosophical about the latter — which just so happens to be one of her guilty pleasures — in the upcoming August 18 issue of The New York Review of Books .
Here’s a quick sample: “Friday Night Lights is held together by a cast of disconcertingly attractive young people with pink, wavy mouths (a few seem straight out of a Beverly Hills casting agency, marring slightly the verisimilitude). They play kids named Tim Riggins, Tyra Collette, Jason Street, Lyla Garrity, and Matt Saracen, whose names envelop and suit them better than any others could, including the actors’ own. Equally attractive is the only high-functioning family in Dillon: that of Coach Eric Taylor and his wife, Tami, who are played with deep and beautiful concentration and chemistry by Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton. The Taylors often speak politely over each other, simultaneously, as if in an Altman film, and when they genuinely lose their tempers, which is seldom, it is transfixing, even when the sparring sounds mild.” Sigh. We didn’t know it was possible to miss FNL any more than we already did. Head over to the NYRB’s website to read the full feature.